Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien, Head of the Working Group directing the production, connecting the supply and consumption of agricultural products in the northern provinces and cities in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, spoke at Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper.

Ministries join hands to develop breeding stock

On October 30, 2021, speaking at the 970 agricultural connection forum, the 9th session held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Truong Chi Thien, General Director of Vinh Thanh Dat Food Joint Stock Company (a unit specializing in the field of poultry eggs, having participated in the price stabilization program of Ho Chi Minh City) said that the egg market is highly competitive.

Currently, the company is piloting egg-laying chickens under the cage-free model.

"In order to further develop livestock products, it is recommended that the MARD have mechanisms and policies to support the development of the domestic breeding field," said Truong Chi Thien.

Also interested in the issue of breeding animals, Luu Son Thuy, General Director of Son Thuy Ha Co., Ltd. said: “In the past few years, Vietnam has mainly imported live cows from Australia and Thailand with a huge scale. Specifically, in 2020, livestock establishments and businesses in Vietnam imported 270,000 cows from Thailand and about 270,000 Australian cows for fattening.

“If you only import Australian cows for fattening, businesses can't survive. Therefore, we hope that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will create conditions for businesses to import cows from many different countries in order to increase the scale of livestock production. In addition, the enterprise also hopes to create favorable conditions for the land fund to produce breeds, from that the enterprise will raise and fatten to improve efficiency,” said Luu Son Thuy.

Responding to the opinions of businesses on the issue of breeding animals, especially the development of cow breeds, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that every year, Vietnam's total herd of cows is about 6.3-6.3 million but mainly from imported sources. In the near future, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the MARD will develop a breed development program, in which business is the driving force.

Improve livestock products through processing

From a local perspective, Le Ba Thanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Bac Giang province, said that Bac Giang is one of the localities with strong development in livestock production in recent years, including the strength of pigs and beef cattle. However, the consumption of livestock products is currently facing difficulties, especially pigs.

However, according to Thanh, Bac Giang needs to improve two issues. One is breeding production, which currently only meets 60% of the demand. The second is to develop a deep processing system.

"Bac Giang proposes the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and neighboring localities to create a consumption support mechanism, so the province can develop deep processing chains of livestock," Thanh said.

Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien also said that currently, the cost of animal feed accounts for about 65-70% of production costs. If this problem cannot be solved, it will be difficult to reduce costs and improve competitiveness.

From a processing perspective, Vietnam has set a target that the rate of processed livestock products will be about 60%. Currently, processing technology is still limited; the rate of processed meat, eggs and milk is still very low.

Affirming that in order to develop livestock sustainably, science and technology is the leading national policy and needs to play a role to create motivation.

The closed chain trend is irreversible, the closed chain can be both vertical and horizontal, in which cooperatives and enterprises play a very important role. "I believe that if the livestock strategy is well implemented, with the participation of the whole political system, we will have an output and export value of the livestock industry exceeding US$1 billion," said Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien.